Another Girl

Honestly this was terrible, some of the things that come out of the protagonists mouth "what do you eat when you bleed?" Women do not talk like this to each other it was cringe. I did not like any of the characters, they behaved so odd and unbelievable. The idea behind it has something interesting to it but the actual conversations and decisions the characters make is infuriating and laughable.

The main character is ridiculously naive. And the writer(s) are obsessed with race. The amount of times that race, specifically Black people, is mentioned in this movie for no reason at all is weird af and it makes me wonder if white people are like this in real life. It's embarrassing and obsessive.

Have you ever had a conversation w/ someone you knew thought you were a total idiot? That is this story. A man who definitely thinks women are stupid wrote about stupid women, badly. Sad to watch.

I genuinely wanted to see this film. It crossed my path several times on multiple occasions, mainly just while browsing Showtime, and I thought the description sounded interesting enough. Plus, critical reception seemed overall positive, and it had some decent actors in it...I should've checked IMDB first, because my God, this film is terrible. There were times it genuinely felt like 2-3 different (and subpar) genre films mashed into one. It felt like it was one third character study, one third (cringey) erotic office place romance, and one third stalker thriller/horror, never cohesively coming into anything truly functional or fully coherent.

The plot obviously draws from very real dangers and frustrations that all types of people, especially teenage/young girls, face in their daily lives, but any potential inherent in the premise is undermined right from the start with almost immediately bizarre dialogue, uninspired direction, and characters that are terribly one dimensional and boring. It seemed like the director just thought of every cliche conversation or problem a teenage girl would discuss or experience, and attempted to jam it into his script. For example, obviously young women are going to discuss things like their periods in private, but I highly doubt it'll come out of their mouths as 'what do you eat when you bleed?' There's also very lame and surface level attempts at furthering the character development and psychology of the protagonist by vague one line references to abusive uncles and fathers that were never shown once, and that are never brought up a second time. It could've been potentially impactful and compelling to see this abuse play out, but implementing it in the form of a phrase feels incredibly lazy. It makes the cliche of the sexually irresponsible young woman from the backwards religious mother seem even more cookie cutter and wooden. It also felt like the director was trying to hit every mark imaginable, so we also have the perfect, stylish gay uncle who provides respite from the mothers religious zealotry, and the confident, assured black female friend.

The direction, as I mentioned earlier, is completely uninspired. This looks exactly like anything you'd find on the Lifetime or Hallmark channel, with extremely low production values and very standard cinematography and editing. The film has no sense of presence, mood, or theme. I think the director intended for the viewer to be unnerved and disturbed, shocked by the protagonist's delusional, declining mental state and her interactions with this insidious predator. I also think there was supposed to be some sort of mounting sense of dread that accompanied the film as it moved towards its bland conclusion. Unfortunately, we feel or get none of that. The film is so bad at establishing any kind of feeling in the viewer, I genuinely might as well have been watching the weather channel forecast I was so unengaged, so uninvolved about what was taking place, even though I was definitely meant to.

Lastly, I will say I do feel bad for the main actress. I haven't seen her in many other things, but she's clearly got some talent and potential, but it's just wasted here. I don't know what kind of direction she was getting, or if she was even getting any at all, but often times her performance didn't seem to match the film. Not that it was ever bad, but it just never seemed to mesh with the other elements. It's probably because her performance is the only thing with any texture or life in the project, so it comes across as out of place.

I genuinely think she tried to give her character some true weight and pathos, but when you have a script and director that never encourages you to dive below the surface, you're going to get a pretty lackluster character study, and that's unfortunately exactly what we ended up with. By the end of the film, I didn't know if I was meant to be dealing with a mentally ill young woman, or a ditzy, spoiled brat. I didn't know if I was meant to feel sorry for her (presumably I am,) or was supposed to feel disturbed and revolted by her and her situation.

The whole thing is just mess. Do yourself a favor and don't watch it.

As "Another Girl" (2021 release; 95 min.) opens, we get to know Elle, a 20-something woman. She just finished a fiction book written by Katie, one of the book's characters. For reasons unknown, Katie has a website where one can email her. Elle decides to email Katie. Some days late, lo and behold, Katie responds! How is that possible? Just as Elle is getting super excited, the book's publisher emails Elle that this was all fake... At this point we are 15 min into the movie.

Couple of comments: this is the movie adaptation of the book of the same name by Allison Burnett (in fact, a guy). Burnett also directs the film. I had never heard of this Allison Burnett before, or of the book. I cam only tell you what I experienced while watching this. Bottom line: it was not a good experience. The story didn't make any sense whatsoever. To market this as a "thriller" is frankly misleading. It feels more like a YA story. Samantha Hanratty plays the lead role of Elle, and tries with the weak material she is given. She of course also stars in the recent (and very enjoyable) mini-series "Yellowjackets". Please note: I never realized while watching this film that it is in fact a sequel to an earlier film called "Undiscovered Gyrl". I only found out about it when I looked up Allison Burnett after seeing this. I have no idea if I would've enjoyed this better had I seen the prior film. I kinda doubt it.

"Another Film was suggested to me by Showtime, presumably because I recently watched "What Breaks the Ice", which I quite enjoyed. Turns out to be an erroneous recommendation! But hey, don't take my word for it, so check out "Another Girl", and draw your own conclusion.